DATE=10/14/1999
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=CHINA-US-TEST BAN (L ONLY)
NUMBER=2-255000
BYLINE=ROGER WILKISON
DATELINE=BEIJING
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: China says it deeply regrets the United States
Senate's refusal to ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test
Ban Treaty, but is promising to hasten work on its own
ratification of the document. VOA correspondent Roger
Wilkison reports Beijing says the Senate's vote will not
affect China's self-declared moratorium on nuclear tests.
TEXT: Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue -
speaking through an interpreter-told reporters Beijing
regrets the failure of the US Senate to ratify the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, also known as the CTBT.
/////INTERPRETER ACTUALITY/////
China deeply regrets that the U-S Senate voted to reject
the ratification of the C-T-B-T.
/////END ACTUALITY/////
Ms. Zhang noted that the United States is one of 44
countries whose ratification is required for the treaty to
enter into force. Earlier this week, she urged the United
States to ratify the pact.
/////INTERPRETER ACTUALITY/////
Its ratification of the treaty has great influence on the
entering into force of the treaty.
/////END ACTUALITY/////
Beijing signed the C-T-B-T in 1996. Ms. Zhang pledged that
China will speed up its own ratification process.
/////INTERPRETER ACTUALITY/////
China has started the process of the ratification, and
China is going to have a serious deliberation on the
treaty, and on this basis we will accelerate the process of
ratification.
/////END ACTUALITY/////
Ms. Zhang quoted President Jiang Zemin as telling the
United Nations Disarmament Conference in Geneva last March
that China has always stuck to the provisions of the
treaty, despite not having ratified it as yet. China says
it has not conducted a nuclear test since July, 1996. It
has observed a moratorium on testing since then, and Ms.
Zhang says it will continue to do so.
China is believed to have deployed 284 nuclear warheads,
less than any other nuclear power. Russia and the United
States are estimated to have deployed more than seven
thousand each. (signed)
NEB/RW/FC
14-Oct-1999 04:47 AM EDT (14-Oct-1999 0847 UTC)
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Source: Voice of America
.